Some marketing elements, like events, have historically measured themselves on engagement metrics. To ensure they align to the rest of your marketing efforts, though, you must train and measure event marketers just like those who focus on all other tactics.

If you don’t know what worked and why, how will you ensure you are spending your budget and time on the right mix of tactics? Marketing attribution helps you focus on the things that work and stop doing things that don’t.

The historical duty of marketers has been to tell as many potential customers about the organization and its products/services as possible. Now, with all this talk of being customer-centric, marketers are being asked to make a 180° turn.

For most organizations of a certain size – or those who want to get to that size – marketing automation is not an option. It is a necessity. In fact, many marketing transformations, especially those with a desire to be more digital or buyer centric in their marketing, are built around a shift to marketing automation.

Build out a formal purchasing cycle that everyone in your organization can align their efforts to. Consider the process from the buyer’s perspective so you have the best chance to intercept the buyer and lead her along the path you lay out across the stages.

If you can understand your buyer very well, you can anticipate her every move and thought. That, in turn, will help you create marketing that is so perfectly targeted that it get her to do what you want her to do, very much like dogs do to their humans.